Hoa Vang Commune People's Committee (Da Nang City) has just held a ceremony to announce the decision to implement the policy of providing free textbooks to students of general education institutions in the commune. The ceremony aims to implement Resolution 71-NQ/TW dated August 22, 2025 of the Politburo on breakthroughs in education and training development.
According to Hoa Vang Commune People's Committee, from July 1, 2025, immediately after being established under the two-level local government model, Hoa Vang Commune People's Committee has implemented the "Common textbook cabinet" model to support students in difficult circumstances.
Initial results, the locality has mobilized 551 million VND and 6,262 textbooks, serving 1,254 students with a total of 15,171 book borrows, reaching 31% of the demand for textbooks in the 2025-2026 school year.
Next, the commune continued to mobilize an additional 1.5 billion VND to supplement 74,676 books of all kinds, raising the total number of textbooks in the library to 96,109 books. Thereby, meeting the conditions to serve nearly 7,000 students at all levels of education in the area, ensuring 100% meeting the demand for textbooks from the 2026-2027 school year.
This is a very good and practical way of doing things. Because for many families, especially in rural areas, the cost of textbooks each school year is not a small amount. When it is free, spending pressure decreases, and more importantly, all students have the opportunity to access full learning materials right from the beginning of the school year. Equity in accessing education is therefore also strengthened.
More importantly, when textbooks are organized for common use, each set of textbooks not only serves one student in one year, but can be used through many generations. This significantly reduces the total cost of the whole society for the same needs, while limiting waste, a problem that has existed for a long time in annual book replacements.
At the announcement ceremony, Mr. Le Phu Nguyen - Chairman of Hoa Vang commune - shared a very good idea, that: "Each book you keep clean and beautiful today is a meaningful gift for your beloved juniors tomorrow. When you know how to cherish and preserve public assets, intellectual assets, you will be worthy of being a good example, a good child in the family, a good student in school, a good citizen in a civilized society".
Furthermore, the shared bookshelf of Hoa Vang commune also shows a remarkable movement in the operation of the local government.
In the context of the two-level government model being implemented, the fact that a commune proactively designs and implements a policy with such a wide impact shows that the role of the grassroots level is being promoted more clearly.
No longer just a place to implement, grassroots authorities can become a place to initiate policy initiatives suitable to their actual conditions.
Of course, for this policy to be sustainable, there are still issues to consider. The management and preservation of books, students' awareness of use, or adaptability when the curriculum and textbook content change... are all factors that directly affect long-term effectiveness.
Without a strict operating mechanism, maintenance costs may increase, reducing the initial meaning of the policy.
However, the fact that a commune-level locality can complete the goal of providing free textbooks 4 years earlier than the orientation to 2030 is a positive sign. It shows that if the approach is appropriate, seemingly large goals can still start from specific, practical steps.
More importantly, the shared bookshelf of Hoa Vang commune is also a good suggestion on how to make policies, starting from real needs, tested and verified, and expanded when conditions are met.
This shared bookshelf model can completely become a suggestion for implementing many other social security policies, from education to health, in a way that is closer to the people and more effective.
